I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I
myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the
tribe of Benjamin. 2 God has not rejected his people whom he
foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he
appeals to God against Israel? 3 "Lord, they have killed your
prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left,
and they seek my life." 4 But what is God's reply to him? "I have
kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to
Baal." 5 So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by
grace. 6 But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of
works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.

If we want to know God deeply and personally, we have to take
him on his own terms. We can't dictate to God how he should be
known or how he should reveal himself. We can't say, "Give me a
dream!" Or, "Give me a list!" Or, "Give me human authority!" God
will say, "I have given you the Bible. Go there and get to know me.
Don't tell me how to make myself known. I will tell you how you can
know me. Go to your Bible and get to know me."

But even when we go to the Bible to know God, we have to take
his self-revelation on its own terms. And what we find when we take
it as a whole is that there is a history in it. It moves from
predestination, to creation, to the call of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, to the bondage of Israel in Egypt, to the Exodus and the
giving of the law and the wilderness wandering, to the promised
land and the judges and the monarchy with Saul and David and
Solomon, and to the divided kingdom of Judah and Israel, to the
exile in Babylon and the return to the homeland, to the silence
between the Old and New Testaments, to the coming of the Messiah -
Jesus Christ - and the rejection of Christ by his people, to the
crucifixion and resurrection and ascension, to the outpouring of
the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, to the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.,
and on to the amazing spread of the lordship of Christ among more
and more of the peoples of the world, including us.

This is the way God has revealed himself. We don't say, "Give me
dream." We say, "Give me a Bible." And when we have our Bible, we
don't say, "Give me a systematic treatment of divine attributes."
We say, "Show me your self, O God, from the way you have acted in
history, and the way you spoke about your action." That is how we
know God. We come to him on his own terms. That is, we come to him
as he has acted in history and as he has given us a book to tell
that story and explain what it means.

Romans 11: The Revelation of God and His Work in History

No chapter in the New Testament reveals this more than Romans
11. It is all about the way God has acted and will act toward
Israel and toward the nations in history. And therefore it is all
about who God is and what he is like.

This is why history matters. This is why there is history.
History exists to reveal God. God doesn't exist to unfold history.
He is the first and last and middle in this affair of history. It's
all about him, from beginning to end. The universe exists to
display the fullness of the glory of God's perfections.

The Bible says that "the heavens declare the glory of God"
(Psalm 19:1).

It says that the people of Israel exist to the glory of God. "I
made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling
to me, declares the LORD, that they might be for me a people, a
name, a praise, and a glory" (Jeremiah 13:11).

It says that Christ came into the world to die to make known the
glory of God. On the eve of his death he said: "Now is my soul
troubled. And what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'?
But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your
name" (John 12:27-28).

It says that the existence and advance of the Christian Church
over the centuries is for the display of the glory of the Father.
"To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all
generations, forever and ever. Amen" (Ephesians 3:21).

It says that all secular rulers and institutions exist by God's
decree (Romans 13:1) and for the display of his power and
perfections, including his justice and wrath. "For the Scripture
says to Pharaoh, 'For this very purpose I have raised you up, that
I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed
in all the earth'" (Romans 9:17). And when king Nebuchadnezzar
discovered this truth he recovered from his insanity and said, "All
the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does
according to his will among the host of heaven and among the
inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him,
'What have you done?'" (Daniel 4:35).

All of history - including what is happening all around us - is
a canvas being painted by an infinitely glorious and very
mysterious Artist. And the point of the painting is the revelation
of his glory - including all the pain and all the horror and all
the injustice as a backdrop for God's holy wrath and unimpeachable
justice and sovereign grace.

What is God like? That is the point of history. Mainly what we
see is the work in progress, as Paul said, "Now we see in a mirror
dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know
fully, even as I have been fully known" (1 Corinthians 13:12).

But the decisive events for understanding God in history have
already happened. Jesus Christ is the center of the story. He's the
most important character and the clearest revelation of God. The
Bible is the record and the interpretation of the decisive events
of history with Jesus at the center, and this record guides how we
interpret every other brushstroke on the canvass that we look at in
our day.

Romans 11 is spectacular in its vision of
God's work in history. It's not an accident that it comes to
an end with the words, "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and
knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how
inscrutable his ways!" I pray that the Lord give you a humble sense
of awe and admiration from what we see here. Because some of it is
so strange to fallen, secular, self-centered human ears that,
without a lowly sense of reverence, you may be simply bewildered or
even angered.

Romans 11:30-32-A Three-Verse Summary of the Chapter

Just to give you a flavor of where Paul is going and how strange
God's rule over history is, look at verses 30-32. This is the last
thing he says before he sings his doxology. He is summing up God's
ways with the Gentiles and the Jews in history.

Just as you [Gentiles] were at one time disobedient to God but
now have received mercy because of their [Israel's] disobedience,
31 so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy
shown to you they also may now receive mercy. 32 For God has
consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.

You see four steps of history: 1) The Gentiles were disobedient
to God. There was a long history of letting the nations go their
own way while God focused his redemptive work on Israel. 2) Then
there was the decisive disobedience of Israel as she rejected her
Messiah and stumbled over the stumbling stone (Romans 9:32-33). 3)
This disobedience led to mercy for the Gentiles as the gospel
spread among the nations. And notice in verse 31 that this is not
mere sequence. This is divine plan: They - Israel - have now been
disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you -
Gentiles - they also may now receive mercy. 4) Which is the fourth
step: Israel receives mercy because the mercy shown to the
Gentiles. God aimed to show mercy to both. Therefore (v. 32) he
consigned both to disobedience that he may have mercy on them.

That is a three-verse summary of Romans 11, and it is mind
boggling. Which is why it leads directly into verse 33, "Oh, the
depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How
unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!" Oh,
may the Lord make us humble and willing to follow him in his
unsearchable and inscrutable ways - and there get to know him. That
is my goal. I believe that knowing God, as he reveals himself in
this chapter, will be good for us and good for our families and
good for our city and good for the nations of the world. God would
not have taken such pains to show himself in this way if it were
not good for us. I trust him.

The Inscrutable Ways of God in Romans 11:1-6

So let's look at his ways in verses 1-6.

First it speaks of something God does not do - he does
not reject his people. Verse 1: "I ask, then, has God rejected his
people? By no means!"

Then it speaks of something God did do - he foreknows them.
Verse 2: "God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew."

Then it speaks of something God did and does - he kept for
himself a remnant of faithful people in Elijah's day and Paul's
day. Verse 4: "I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have
not bowed the knee to Baal." And Verse 5: "So too at the present
time
there is a remnant."

And finally it tells us (at the end of verse 5) how God did it -
he chose them by grace.

We will linger a long time next week over the meaning of grace,
and God's keeping a remnant for himself according to election.
Those are huge questions: How does election relate to grace? And
how does God's keeping a remnant of faithful people relate to
election and grace? So we will save that for next week.

Today let's look at God's not rejecting his people, and what his
foreknowing means.

God Has Not Rejected His People

Paul's argument in verse 1 that God has not rejected his people
is that he himself is a Jew. "I ask, then, has God rejected his
people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of
Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin." So the people Paul is
concerned about in verse 1 must be the physical, ethnic people of
Israel, not the church of Jew and Gentile. God has not rejected
ethnic Israel because "I am an ethnic Israelite, of the tribe of
Benjamin."

But someone asked me last week: Does that mean that all Jewish
people who ever lived will be saved? The answer is no. Jesus and
Paul sound the same note on this question (as do the Jewish
prophets, e.g., Ezekiel 18:20; Daniel 12:1-2). Jesus says, "I tell
you, many [Gentiles] will come from east and west and recline at
table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven,
while the sons of the kingdom [Israelites] will be thrown into the
outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of
teeth" (Matthew 8:11). He said to the Pharisees: "You serpents, you
brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?"
(Matthew 23:33).

And Paul said in Romans 2:8-9, "For those who are self-seeking
and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be
wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every
human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek." So
there is no thought of every individual Jewish person being
automatically saved because he is a Jew. "It is not the children of
the flesh who are the children of God" (Romans 9:8). That principle
has not changed. No Jew or Gentile individual is saved because of
his ethnicity or background.

Well, if not every individual Jewish person, what does Paul
refer to when he says in verse 2, "God has not rejected his
people whom he foreknew"?

We could argue that he simply means the "remnant" mentioned in
verse 5: "So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by
grace." In other words, Paul and other Jews in his day are
believers on the Messiah, and so there is a faithful remnant who
will inherit the promises made to Israel, and so God has not
rejected his people, namely, his remnant whom he foreknew.

That's almost the right answer. But there's a problem with it:
that's not what verse 1 was asking when it said, "Has God rejected
his people?" The problem verse 1 is raising is not that there is no
remnant. Chapters 9 and 10 were clear that there was a remnant of
Jews who were saved (9:24, 27, "a remnant will be saved"). The
absence of a remnant was not the problem.

The problem in these chapters is that it looks like corporate
Israel taken as a whole, alive in any given generation, is mainly
perishing and cut off from Christ. That's the issue raised in verse
1. That's what I think Paul refers to when he says God has not
rejected his people - the people of Israel taken as a corporate
whole in any given generation. God has not rejected them. I will
give at least six arguments for this understanding in the weeks to
come (Romans 11:15, 16, 24, 25, 28f, 31).

God Has Foreknown His People

But for now let's connect this with the idea of foreknowing.
Paul says in Verse 2, "God has not rejected his people whom he
foreknew." He means that if God foreknew them, then he can't
reject them. The foreknowing implies a commitment to them. It can't
be broken. That's why Paul is sure God has not rejected Israel as a
whole. He foreknew them. In the past he "knew" them.

So what does this foreknowing? The clearest illustration of it
in relation to the whole people of Israel is found Amos 3:2. God
says to Israel, "You only have I known of all the families of the
earth." Almost everyone agrees that this means, "You only have I
chosen. You only have I sought out and made mine and known you the
way a husband knows a wife." I think that's the foreknowing in
Romans 11:2. Israel is God's foreknown, that is, chosen people.

This is confirmed in Romans 11:28-29, "As regards the gospel,
they [Israel] are enemies of God for your [Gentiles'] sake. But as
regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their
forefathers. 29 For the gifts and the calling of God are
irrevocable."

This is not a reference to the remnant. The believing remnant
are not "enemies of God" for the sake of Gentiles. They are not
part of the disobedience that leads to mercy for the Gentiles
(11:31-32). Romans 11:28 is a reference to corporate Israel as a
whole, alive in any given generation. This is the visible corporate
nation of people called Jews. And because they reject Christ, they
are presently enemies of God (I say it with trembling and longing
for their faith), and cut off from Christ (Romans 9:3). But that is
not the whole story. There is a future for corporate Israel,
because they are as a corporate people (not every individual who
lived) "elect." That is, they are "foreknown." God made a covenant
with their forefathers. "You only have I known from all the peoples
of the earth."

And in Paul's mind the fact that there is a remnant of Jewish
believers in the Messiah that God has kept for himself (vv. 4-5)
signals to Paul that God is not through with corporate Israel.
That's where we will pick it up next week, Lord willing. God has
kept for himself a remnant according to the election of grace.

Application Question: "Has God Rejected the Gentiles?"

But as we close today, consider this question of application to
yourself. Suppose someone raised the opposite objection today.
Suppose someone asked, "Has God rejected the Gentiles?" I don't
mean an exact parallel with Israel. Just loosely: What if someone
said, "Has God rejected all the Gentiles?" And suppose they looked
your way for an answer to the question. Could you do what Paul did
here in the last part of verse 1?

Could you say, "No, God has not rejected the Gentiles. For I
myself am a Gentile, and I am not rejected. I have been accepted
not first because of the Jewish forefathers, but because of Christ,
who loved me and gave himself for me. My sins are forgiven. His
righteousness is provided for me. My condemnation is removed. My
guilt is taken away. I have been born again into the family of God,
not by natural birth or any ethnic connection, but by the Holy
Spirit who changed my heart and awakened faith. I am not an enemy
of God, but a friend. I am not hardened and resistant anymore, but
broken and dependent. No, God has not rejected the Gentiles.
Because in Christ he had not rejected me.

Oh, how I pray that you will say that. For this Christ died and
rose again, that he might be Lord of the Jew and of the Gentile.
May the Savior receive the reward of his suffering even today.